


the turtle couldn't help us

by scumfuck



Category: IT - Stephen King, IT 2017
Genre: Angst, Canon Death, Eddie Kaspbrak - Freeform, Homophobia, M/M, Reddie, Stephen King's IT - Freeform, The Loser's Club - Freeform, angsty, maggie tozier - Freeform, minimal violence, reddie fanfiction, richie's parents - Freeform, wentworth tozier - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 10:56:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15556197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scumfuck/pseuds/scumfuck
Summary: Eddie and Richie's relationship through the eyes of Maggie Tozier.





	the turtle couldn't help us

**Author's Note:**

> hi!!!!!! this is a fic i've been wanting to write for a while!!!
> 
> let me know if you'd want aanother fic like this, but in Eddie's mom's perspective??? maybe???

* * *

If Maggie Tozier was anything, it was most definitely observant.

 

She makes jokes and laughs and plays around, yes, but every good comic notices things about people. The way they shift their eyes when talking about certain topics, the way they tap their fingers or bite their lip when they concentrate, little nervous habits like blinking too fast or picking at the skin near their fingernails. Even things that showed happiness, likecrinkles around eyes, or a giggle that surpassed a hand clamped around the mouth.

 

This trait clearly didn't pass on to her son, Richie. He didn't pay attention to the things people did or said.

 

Richie had many nervous tics, things that he did nonstop. His leg was always bouncing, even when the doctors told him he "grew out" of his ADHD, and when he talked about something he wasn't proud of, like his grades or why he came home with a black eye, his voice was very rushed, as if he wanted it all out in one breath to get it over with.

 

Maggie, although she forgot sometimes, made an effort to make sure her son could talk to her. And he did, more often than not, which reassured her. Up until he was fifteen, he told his mother almost everything that happened at school and around town, and a little less of what went on with his friends, Bill Denbrough and Stanley Uris, and Mike Hanlon and Ben Hanscom, and that Marsh girl the ladies at the hair salon always talked about when Maggie went. It didn't bother her that he kept secrets, though it bothered Wentworth a bit ("I wanna know what he does all day with those kids!", he had said one night, feeling oddly irritated that he didn't exactly know what it was that his son was interested in.), but she respected the boy's privacy and let him tell her what he was comfortable with sharing.

 

Like when he was in sixth grade, after dinner, he had told his mother that he earned himself a detention because he made a lewd joke about the French during history. He told her the joke, and she admitted it was funny, but scolded him for saying it loud enough for the teacher to hear.

 

 

 

And when he was 14, he mentioned there was a gay kid who was beat up behind the arcade by a group of bullies.

 

"They kept yelling about how he's a fag and stuff," Richie'd explained, his eyebrows threaded together in a look of disappointment mixed with what Maggie thought was a smidge of anger. His fork poked at his mashed potatoes, which already went cold. Dinner was over, his father had gotten up and was now tuning into the news, and Maggie's own plate was clean.

 

"Why didn't you help him?"

 

Richie shrugged and dropped the fork against the plate, letting it clatter. . He adjusted his glasses and his fingers moved to dance on the rim of his mother's wine glass, his leg bouncing underneath the table. "I would've, but-"

 

"They were hurting him for no reason, Rich. You should've helped him," Maggie interrupted, resting her chin in her non-manicured hand and studying her son's expression. "What if it was one of your friends?"

 

Richie froze, only for a second, and flicked his eyes around, before blinking and resuming to his finger's race around the edge of the glass. "Uh. If it was one of my friends I would've helped him. I would've beaten up Bowers and his gang all by myself. I think I would've been real angry if it was one of my friends."

 

They were both silent as his words sunk in. Maggie stared at the grime underneath Richie's fingernails, which were now tapping against the wine glass.

 

"What was the boy's name again?" she asked him.

 

Richie shrugged too quickly. He averted his glance, choosing instead to stare at a photograph of him, his mother, and his father framed on the wall. "Don't remember."

 

Maggie narrowed her eyes. "Yes you do, don't lie," she snapped, "People who lie don't grow up nice."

 

Richie huffed, ran a hand through his hair, which was in a stage before he decided to grow it out. It was shorter then, curling just around his ears, which he complained about because it made them itch. Another one of Richie's habits was pulling on his ears, Maggie noted, but he grew out of that one by high school.

 

"His name's Eddie Kaspbrak."

 

"Kaspbrak?" Maggie remembered the name from when Richie was in elementary school. The boys never became close friends, nothing really except for a  couple play dates here and there when they were seven or eight, because from what Maggie remembered his mother controlled the boy's every move. She remembered picking a first grade Richie up from school and him saying a boy in his class wasn't allowed to play outside during recess.

 

"Yeah." Richie replied. "He's kind of annoying."

 

Maggie considered it, thought on it for a moment, then spoke. "Why don't you invite him for dinner for Friday? Dad's working late that night."

 

Her son's eyes widened the size of their dinner plates. "Mom," he started to whine. "I- I can't just-"

 

Maggie stood abruptly. "Yes you can." She picked up her finished plate and the wine glass from underneath Richie's hands. "I'll make spaghetti and meatballs."

 

Then she turned towards the kitchen and left her son to groan quietly to himself. Good, she thought, he shouldn't have just left the boy there. She didn't raise someone like that.

 

And surely enough, that Friday, when Maggie got home from her shift, Eddie Kaspbrak was sitting at the kitchen table next to Richie. In front of them lay Richie's deck of playing cards, which he hadn't used since he was twelve. They still lay untouched, because Richie was explaining a scene from SNL he'd seen last weekend, and Eddie was listening intently.

 

Eddie, Maggie immediately saw, had a huge purple bruise on his right cheek. It was noticeable even from Maggie's position at the door of the room.

 

She stepped fully in and laid her purse down on the table. She smiled at the boy, who jumped when she placed down her bag, as if she was Henry Bowers. As if she was gonna jump him and beat him to pulp right then and there.

 

His eyes were big and brown, and even when he'd settled back down after the assurance that it was only Richie's mom, still looked scared to death. Richie stopped talking about a Chris Rock skit and smiled up at his mom.

 

"Hi, ma."

 

"Hey, love," she mumbled back, then grinned down at Eddie. "And hello, Eddie, it's so wonderful to meet you!"

 

She thrust her hand out for him to shake. When Eddie shook it, she enveloped his small hand with her other one. Eddie's nails were trimmed and devoid of any kind of dirt underneath them. His knuckles were just starting to get over a bruise. Each bruise looked different, and one even still looked bloody. She wondered why that was.

 

"It's nice to meet you too, Ms. Tozier," he replied politely. He took his hand back, and Maggie observed that his free hand was shaking in his lap. She looked at her own son, who was staring at the stark like bruise on Eddie's cheek. As she walked past them, beginning to talk, she swatted him out of the stare.

 

"Eddie, honey, I'll be making spaghetti. Is that okay with you?" she asked. When she saw his nod of approval out of the corner of her eye, she went on. "It's really the only thing I can make well. Richie knows that. Thank god for his father, because he'd be getting McDonald's every night if it weren't for him." Maggie began unraveling the scarf around her neck and placing it on the hook. Then she went to unbuttoning her coat. "Does your mother cook a lot for you, Eddie? My mother did. She cooked a lot, but she only taught my sister how to do it. By the time I should've known how to make a simple meal, she was long gone."

 

Richie muttered something smart ass to Eddie about her big mouth. She could've swatted him again, but he was sitting too far away to reach.

 

"My mother often gets pre-made food from the grocery store, Ms. Tozier," Eddie said. Maggie began preparing dinner.

 

"It's so easy, isn't it?"

 

She caught her son rolling his eyes with a smile playing on his lips.

 

"Wanna see my room?" he asked. Eddie shrugged and nodded in response.

 

"Anyways, Chris was doing the weekend update, right, and so he was talking about how there could never be a black vice president, right, and so..."

 

Maggie took a sip of dark red wine, the taste warm and pleasant as soon as it hit the tip of her tongue. Eddie had gotten quite a large helping of the spaghetti and meatballs. She watched as he began to eat it. Richie was now complaining about their English teacher. When he was finished, Maggie filled the silence.

 

"So, Eddie, what do you like to do?"

 

Eddie glanced up at her with the same strikingly wide eyes, then swallowed his food. He smiled sweetly, even though it looked like it hurt his cheek, and answered her.

 

"Oh, I really love cars. I can't wait to get my permit when I'm sixteen, really," he quickly took a swig from his glass of water, "I've been into auto-motives my whole li-"

 

Then, the small framed boy collapsed into a fit of coughs. He didn't seem sick, but the sudden heaving of his breaths alarmed Maggie, and she stood up to help him.

 

Eddie pulled out a plastic object from his pocket, shook it, and inhaled it. Maggie stood next to the table and watched him. Richie, too, looked startled by the situation. He seemed to know what was wrong though, and his hand had slid off the table and held the pocket of his jeans, as if he too was going to whip out an aspirator and take a puff of it. Or give it to Eddie.  

 

After Eddie cooled off from what Maggie assumed was an asthma attack, he cleared his throat and strained another smile as she sat back down.

 

"Sorry, Ms. Tozier. I have asthma, and earlier this week, I, uh," Eddie glanced at Richie quickly, then back at his friend's mom, "I fell down the stairs."

 

Maggie knew it was a lie, but feigned surprise.

 

"Oh!"

 

"Yeah, uh," Eddie continued, pulling on the collar of his sweater anxiously, which Maggie noted was one of the boy's habits. "That's how I got this stinger," he pointed to his cheek, "And I also landed on my ribs, so, um, my breathing has been pretty messed up lately."

 

Maggie spared a glance at her son, who was smiling softly at the boy across the table. She blinked and turned back to Eddie. "I'm really sorry about that, sweetie."

 

It was silent between the three of them for a moment as they ate. Richie was twirling the spaghetti around his fork before he grinned and looked up at Eddie.

 

"Eddie-Spaghetti. It rhymes!" He laughed to himself, then smiled big and cheesy at the boy across from him. Maggie watched the encounter.

 

"Please, don't call me that," Eddie said, but his voice dripped with a sort of uncertainty. And surely enough, the corners of his eyes were wrinkled, though he wasn't laughing.

 

Richie adjusted his glasses before squinting at Eddie, his lips still turned up at the corners. "You love it, Spaghetti."

 

Eddie retorted something back, and Richie egged him on even more, until they bickered back and forth as if Maggie wasn't even there. That was the first time Maggie saw the two of them act that way. They were like an old married couple, she thought idly.

 

To say the least, Eddie came over a lot more frequently after that. Every Friday in ninth grade, Richie and Eddie would watch a movie together on the couch. Eddie would leave by 10:30PM, around the same time Wentworth would come home from the bar and start watching Bill Maher on the television.

 

Around Richie, Eddie's ears were always bright red. Often he tried not to laugh when Richie said dumb jokes or made puns; he either caved and laughed his ass off, or he'd cover his mouth and scold the boy for how stupid he can be sometimes.

 

When they were sixteen, Maggie came home one night from a late shift around nine o'clock. The television was quietly playing the last fifteen minutes of The Silence of the Lambs (which, mind you, was out of their comfort zone as far as movie genres; Maggie was surprised it wasn't another recording of SNL or even a Spielberg movie), and the two boys were watching it together. Maggie took a further look and found that only Richie was watching it, because Eddie was sleeping, his head resting on Richie's shoulder.

 

Maggie wasn't surprised about Eddie leaning on him, nor was she mad. What she was fascinated by was Richie's stillness; not one muscle was moving, his knee wasn't bouncing, he lay completely unmoved. It must've taken a lot of constraint to not bounce his leg, like he always did, especially in awkward situations.

 

Her child, who scored negatively on the ADD test, who had the attention span of a housefly, was able to sit perfectly calm while a boy slept on his shoulder.

 

She never said anything, simply walked up to her room.

 

And maybe it was the fact that every time Richie came home from Eddie's house after school, even throughout high school, he looked as happy as can be. Or every month he'd make a mixtape (using money from his birthday to pay for new records), and get on his bike to gift it to Eddie or someone else. Maybe it was the look on her son's face when Eddie made a retort to one of his stupid jokes he probably stole from Phil Hartman or Chris Rock or Mike Myers. All of those things made Maggie just not care if there were something more between them.

 

Wentworth didn't totally mind, either. He brought it up one night while Richie went to a sleepover with a couple friends.

 

"So he's into the queer kid, huh?" Went brought up, quite casually in fact, while reading a novel written by some prestigious white guy.

 

Maggie was embroidering a design into the corner of a tablecloth. "Hmm?"

 

"Rich. He's into the queer one?" he repeated.

 

Maggie lay the thread and needle in her lap. "How'd you find out?"

 

"Did he tell you?"

 

"Well, no... But I think so, too. He's all over him. I wouldn't be surprised if they're together," Maggie said carefully.

 

Wentworth hummed, turning a crisp page in the book. "Good for him. He's like... He's not gay all around, right? He likes girls, too?"

 

Maggie started to embroider again. "I don't know. I don't think it's any of our business, don't you think?"

 

"Mhm. Good for him," he repeated.

 

And that was it.

 

On the fourth of July, in Richie's senior year of high school, Maggie and Richie went for a walk. He'd been cooped up all day in his room listening to Depeche Mode, or some other band where the members have crazy haircuts, and he needed some sunlight.

 

"Your skin looks too pale. You better get a tan when you come back for Thanksgiving," Maggie quipped, because it was true. Richie was pale as a ghost, though he'd probably just describe it as the Robert Smith Look, without the crazy makeup Richie always showed her.

 

"I'll be too busy getting hot chicks. I'm like a magnet, ma, they won't get enough of me over there. They'll be all, 'Ooo, a Damyankee, please, do your best Al Pacino impression!'" Richie laughed at his own joke, and Maggie couldn't help but chuckle along. Maybe, if he just stayed somewhere closer, like New York, he could get a job at the place he always wanted to get a job at: SNL. He'd be closer to Eddie in New York City, that's for sure. Speaking of...

 

"What about Eddie?"

 

Richie kicked a rock off of the bike path they walked along. He went quiet, and a little bit of pink flushed his neck and the tips of his ears.

 

"I mean, he's going to New York," Richie mumbled, almost inaudibly.

 

"'S so far away. He's such a sweet boy, what a shame, huh?"

 

Richie nodded. "I'm gonna miss him. I mean. I'm gonna visit him a lot, too, I think once I get a job, which won't take me too long, I'll fly to New York every weekend just to see him, I mean, I know it'll work out for the good, it always works out for us, it always..."

 

He was spilling too many words out at once and staring at his shoes. Maggie didn't want to say anything that would make him babble even longer, because dealing with Richie since he was a child meant knowing when he was about to break. And Richie Tozier was about to break.

 

"Honey, it's okay," Maggie soothed, and it didn't even take a warm hand on his shoulder or a hug. The boy turned to face her, without looking her in the eye. Instead, his eyes were darting around, making sure no one was in earshot of them, even though they were walking through the woods at the moment. The look of fear that flashed in his eyes sent a pang of hurt through Maggie's heart.

  _This is him coming out, this is it._  

"Mom, I don't wanna leave him. I love him," Richie said, quickly, again, to get it over with, but he looked like he needed to say more. He did, after a while of silence, and Maggie grabbing his hand and stroking the inside of his wrist softly. "You wanna know something?"

 

 _I know, Richie. I know you two are dating. I know already._ Maggie was prepared to pull the boy into a mom hug, the one he deserved, until he spoke again.

 

"I can't remember what he looks like."

 

Maggie stopped dead in her tracks. _What?_

 

"I know, mom, I sound nuts, but I needed to tell someone. I can't... I can't remember what he looks like unless he's right here, right in front of me," Richie explained, pointing to where Maggie was standing before him.

 

Maggie was ready to think of all of the genetic disorders that came with, but instead of thinking, she laughed. She laughed, and then Richie started laughing, albeit uncomfortably, and they hugged.

 

They started walking again, in silence, except for a couple giggles from Maggie.

 

"It's too bad. New York is a great city. You know who I met in New York? Oh, oh! I haven't told anyone this, not even your father-" Maggie gushed, her hand coming to her cheek. "Mick Jagger. Mick Fucking Jagger. Can you believe?!"

 

Maggie went on, and she was aware of it, but not entirely of her own intentions. She didn't know if she was doing it to get her mind off of Richie and Eddie. And especially the look on Richie's face. She knew that look.

 

Richie didn't bring up the Kaspbrak boy again. Not for a month, really, until the end of summer came and he invited everyone over, Eddie, Stan and the sweet one, Mike. The Denbroughs moved south, Maggie'd heard from the ladies at the salon. That Marsh girl, she moved, too, maybe to Portland. And there was another friend, Ben Hanscom, who came and didn't stay long, or maybe he did and Maggie was just forgetting something.

 

Eddie was the last one to leave their house that night. Maggie caught him and Richie whispering next to the front door, close knit; she didn't eavesdrop, just glanced over.

 

She seemed to doubt the fact that Richie will really keep in touch with Eddie Kaspbrak, after all. It was a young love, right? Those always ended with college. Moving away meant Moving Away. And Richie was going far.

 

As Maggie settled into the now unoccupied family room couch, she couldn't help but overhear someone crying. It sounded halfway between a wheeze and a muffled sob.

 

Then, little choruses of I love you's, over and over and over again. Maggie said nothing when the front door opened, closed, and Richie came to sit next to her on the couch, already breaking into tears once his head hit her lap.

 

...

 

Richie's twenty. He's doing good, for his junior year in college. He's been coming back home every Thanksgiving and Christmas and Hanukkah, just like he promised he would. In LA, he's renting an apartment with two other guys that are in his comedy class; in that class, was where Richie learned how he can become a comedian.

 

It's 1996, now. Maggie's learned that just about anything can happen to her son. Before he comes home for winter break, Maggie makes it her job to go through his old yearbooks. Clearly, he hasn't thought about the suckers he graduated with in years. She stopped asking him if he's kept in touch with people he used to be friends with, like Bill or Stanley, or even Mike Hanlon, whom she still sees around town every now and then.

 

He came home, a healthy looking glow to his face that only came from California, his hair a little more Jim Morrison than the last time she saw him.

 

They hug, get acquainted again, she asked him about his new job as a barista on the side, his classes, if he was ever gonna give up those clunky glasses and get contacts, the usual. He asked her if Dad's gotten any new dental tricks, when she's getting another perm, how long it'll take them to just sell the house and move to San Francisco.

 

Then she brought up his high school friends.

 

And she did it with solely nostalgic purposes. Maybe to get a smile from her son as he looked back on old pictures. She didn't really know.

 

"Remember your old friends from high school? Bill Denbrough? Remember him? Or Stanley, oh, what a sweetheart- don't you remember you and him used to go to temple together? He'd get you tube socks for Hanukkah?"

 

There was a smile on Richie's face, but it wasn't one of nostalgia. There was confusion, written all in his eyes, so clear and magnified by those cokebottle glasses he needed to replace.

 

He couldn't have forgotten them. He grew up with those kids. He couldn't have just let them go.

 

"And Eddie Kaspbrak?" She added, a hopeful tone in her voice, like she was reaching, grabbing for something. There was a shift in his eyes. "Remember him? You two used to hang out all the time. Remember?"

 

He looked at his mother, straight into her eyes, and they were blank, nothing at all. It almost made her shudder.

 

She kept trying, anyways. "He was the little boy you saw getting beat up behind the arcade, remember? And you invited him over for dinner and- and you loved him, Rich. Remember?"

 

Wentworth was sitting in the other side of the kitchen. He pulled his newspaper down slowly, staring at Richie.

 

"'Course he remembers. He was all over that kid. Eddie was his best friend," Went slid in, his voice deep and knowing.

 

Maggie glanced at her husband, who knew Eddie, knew his relationship to Richie, and then focused back on her son, who seemed to not recall anything about it. 

 

Maybe he was faking it.

 

If the two were dating, hypothetically, like Maggie had assumed, then she supposed she would've wanted to not hear about him either. First love hurt. She understood that.

 

"Sorry, ma," Richie mumbled, a half-hearted apology that wasn't really necessary, nor sincere, but it was there. It was laced with confusion and skepticism. It made Maggie's head hurt.

 

"'S'alright, love."

 

It was silent again, before Went mentioned something about UCLA, and Richie's grades, and then they were back to normal, back to the Tozier family.

 

Maggie couldn't help but remember her son's expression as she lay down for bed that night. Wentworth laid in beside her, and she said it.

 

"D'you think he really forgot about Eddie Kaspbrak?" she asked.

 

Wentworth wasn't as observant as his wife, but he wasn't an idiot, and he put two and two together years ago. He shrugged, even in his position on the bed, as he pulled his book from the nightstand to read.

 

"The mind works in wonderful ways, Mags."

 

She bit her lip, stared up at a crack in the ceiling painting. "You do know how close they were, right?"

 

"Mmmhm."

 

"It just seems so... Unrealistic, Went. How could he forget that? I mean, I still remember my first boyfriend. I remember everything about him, what he liked, what he didn't like..."

 

Wentworth looked at her over his glasses. His eyes were the same color as Richie's, somewhere between a green, a blue, and hazel. Now, they belonged to her husband. Not the blank, lifeless ones her son wore earlier.

 

"People choose to lock things up and forget about them. Denial and neglect is something he probably went through. Maybe he's embarrassed," he said, then turned back to his book.

 

Maggie nodded, turning on her side to turn off her bedside lamp.

 

"You're right. Maybe he's just embarrassed."

 

 

.....

 

It's been twentyyears.

 

Maggie Tozier is 65, but she's still sharp as a tack. She hasn't changed much at all, except for her eyesight, but who cares about that.

 

Richie Tozier is 40 now. He came back to Derry for who knows what, because it wasn't to see his aging parents. He stayed in the Derry townhouse, Maggie heard from him afterwards.

 

After what? She asked herself. Nothing particularly happened between when Richie last visited, which was when he was 30, and today, when he knocked on their door out of the blue at 10 o'clock.

 

Richie often didn't cry as a teenager or adult unless something really terrible had happened, or he was punched.

Maggie remembered a time when Bill punched him, and he mumbled it under his breath before storming out of the house, his hands balled up in nervous, angry fists.

"Rich! What a surprise! You're supposed to be in California, sweetheart!" Maggie exclaimed when she opened the door. Richie had fallen into her arms with a choked sob. She wrapped her arms around his body, which was still tall and surprisingly slim for his age. She was confused. 

"I've been here for a week," he mumbled into her shoulder. Then he fell into a fit of sobs again. Maggie pulled back, closes the front door, and looked at her son.

His face was red, unshaven, and streaked with tears. His hair was dark and unruly on his head. He smelled awful, a mix between cigarettes and a lot like a basement, or an unkempt bathroom.

"What happened, dear?"

Wentworth craned his neck from the living room to see. "Richard. Long time, no see. Thought we'd die only by seeing you on Jimmy Kimmel," he commented dryly. Richie cried again, and fell back onto Maggie's shoulder.

"He's gone, mom, he's dead, he's really dead, he's-" He was cut off by his own tears. 

"Who?"

In Derry, the last person to die, as of the news, was a year or two ago, when Adrian Mellon, the young gay kid, got pushed off a bridge. Poor thing. It reminded her of Eddie Kaspbrak. Even the man's face looked strikingly similar to what she remembered the boy to look like. 

"Eddie, mom, Eddie's dead."

She stiffened. Another hate crime? she asked. No, blood loss. Attacked by some wild animal, or something. Richie's voice didn't sound sincere when he said that.

"I'm so sorry, Richie," she said into his hair as he cried.

"I loved him, mom, and... He was gonna say something, he was gonna- and then he died, he quit all on me, all because of It, all because of-" 

Went had cut in. "You saw his arm get bitten off? And you didn't do anything?"

Maggie shot him a warning look. Richie stood up straight. 

"Went, if I could've fucking saved him, I would have. I would have wanted it to be me instead. He had a wife, anyways. He was doing good. I have nothing. I don't fucking have anything."

A wife? Why did he marry a woman?

Richie slumped into the couch in the living room. He had stopped crying for the most part. Now, his leg was bouncing endlessly.

"I just can't get his face out of my head. He looked at me like I was the only one there."

Maggie made her son a mug of coffee, and handed it to him as she walked back into the room.

 

"I thought you didn't keep in touch with him," Maggie said.

Richie looked up at her through a sip of the coffee. "I didn't. Mike Hanlon called us back here. He just happened to be here, too. And I just missed him so much, y'know? Y'know when you just miss someone so much that you can't stop smiling when you see their face?

"He said something as he was dying, and he died in my arms, I can't even begin to express how traumatizing that was for me, really, and he was looking at me, and bleeding, and his finger came up and touched my cheek, and he never got to finish his fucking sentence cause he died, he fucking died, and Bill wouldn't let us get him to a hospital, and there wasn't any service, and he died, he died, right there, and I don't know how to fucking deal with it, mom, I don't know how to-" He was heaving breaths now, the coffee cup in his hand shaking. Maggie went to sit next to him and held his shoulder, but he kept on crying and sobbing out the same words.

"He's dead, he's dead, he's dead, he's-"

"Honey, it's okay, just breathe, okay?" Maggie whispered calmly. Wentworth turned off the television and sat on the other side of his son.

 

Once he was breathing right again, Wentworth sighed and pressed a wrinkled, but strong hand on Richie's own.

"Rich, what you two had when you were young, it was something. And you shouldn't be ashamed of wanting that again. Everyone misses their first love. Most parents would hate it, what you had, think their son is deranged or under some kinda spell. We don't. If you loved him, you loved him. There's only one way to love someone." 

Maggie's hand brushed back sweaty curls from Richie's forehead. "And if you need to take some time to let it sink in, that's okay. Losing someone you love is hard. It's one of the greatest pains you'll probably ever feel."

Richie was silently crying, the tears running down his cheek, racing to get to the edge of his jaw.

The rest of that night consisted of Richie sleeping in his childhood bedroom, the sounds ofhis cries weeping through the walls in the house. It broke Maggie's heart, maybe more than it already was.

 

 At one in the morning, Maggie got out of bed and saw that the light in his room was still peeking out from under the doorway. She crept over, trying not to make noise on the squeaky floorboards, and knocked on his door gently. Then, she opened it, just a crack to peek inside.

Richie was laying on his back on the bed, which wasn't long enough for his body. He surrounding walls of his bed were covered with posters and photos from high school. 

In Richie's hand was a small plastic turtle. Richie was staring at it, twisting it around in his fingers, letting them get used to the shape as if the toy would disappear if he let go of it. 

Richie knew his mom was standing in the doorway, but didn't look up at her. He just stared at the toy. Maggie went to sit on the edge of the bed, where his feet were dangling off.

"What's that?" she whispered, not wanting to make much noise.

"That last night before I went to California he gave me it." 

She was silent, for a minute, confused as to what that could've meant. 

"It's kinda weird because... That night he'd given me this and told me it would save our, uh... relationship. That we'd be okay, y'know?"

Richie placed the turtle back down and sat up, his hand holding his head as if he had a migraine. He probably did, Maggie thought.

 "I'm sorry, Richie," she mumbled. He shrugged in response.

 "I just wish I told him how much I missed him. I was going to, afterwards, but it was too late."

Maggie wondered what "afterwards" meant. What were they doing back in Derry? What was Richie doing back in Derry? He'd gotten his dream job already. He's on talkshows and radio shows and everything you could think of, but he pressed pause on his life to come back to his hometown. And for what? A high school reunion?!

"He told me he had a wife, y'know. Said she's just like his bitchy mom. I wanna know what she's gonna do when she finds out he's gone," he muttered, a look of distaste and jealousy spread on his features. "She probably won't even give a fuck."

"Honey, don't say that-"

Richie threw the plastic turtle against the door. It cracked and fell to the carpet in two pieces. Then he collapsed into Maggie's side, sobbing again, his head in her lap. Maggie let him, her fingers fanning over his hair, gently soothing him.

He cried muffled words, getting everything out.

 

And Maggie let him.


End file.
